I made a small adjustment to the distances (1"= 2cm) because I felt that my table was small. The turn begins with an initiative roll. Player who gets the highest score chooses a squadron and activates it, which means move, shoot, and if need be, boarding. After moving, the Kalor class cruiser shoots a frigate.

In US the number of shooting dice thrown depends on the location of weapons (starboard) and distance (8" segments), and is indicated in a table for each ship. Being at range 3, the cruiser throws 3 dice. Usually a 4+ is a hit, but the frigate is a small ship so only 5-6 hits. I get a "5" and a "6" on the roll so two impacts are achieved. However, the "Exploding Dice" rule used on US says that each "6" obtained counts double, an also allows you to roll another die (and accumulate to infinity, while taking 6s...) . Another "5" is get with that extra dice, making a total of 4 impacts for the roll.

In order to find the effect on the vessel you must compare the impacts obtained with the Damage Rating (DR) and the Critical Rating (CR), which in frigate´s case is 3 and 5 respectively . If impacts equal or exceed the DR ship lose a structure point. If it reaches or exceeds the CR, rather than lose one point of structure the ship will roll on the critical damage table, where most often will lose two structure points and suffer some extra stuff (fire, damaged rudder, crew loss... ). As with 4 hits the DR is exceeded but the CR is not reached, the ship loses a structure point (it had 2, now 1 left).

When the turn ends each player can draw action cards to improve their opportunities during the game. You can have on your hand one card for each squadron you control. A fleet used one of these cards to add 3 to the initiative roll and get first activation on the next turn, choosing the frigates, which shot the balloons.

On US, ships in the same squadron can combine their shots on the same target to increase the possibility of damage. One of the ships gives all shooting dice while the other ships that combine fire only provides half (rounded down). As you can see, the shot was pretty bad...

12 impacts on the Ralnarl class heavy cruiser! Almost about to cause two critical rolls (CR7). Furthermore, using the magical action card "Shockwave", the cruiser cause another structural damage to the frigate and destroys it.

War balloons slip between A fleet. In this position they can use both their port and starboard cannons. The combined attack on the heavy cruiser exceeds CR, causing 2 structure damages (only one is left to kripple ship) and fire. Each balloon also shoot one frigate, but only manage to destroy one of thee.

Oops! I forgot that the heavy cruiser could have made a reaction shoot before being attacked by war balloons...

The Kalor class cruiser shoots the last frigate and destroys it.The damaged heavy cruiser is activated next and, although it is too far away to ram, it has the opportunity to repeat the war ballons brilliant move and place between them and the Kalor cruiser. Unfortunately, before he could do it he must put out the fire, but is unable to do so and lost his last structure point.

I have really enjoyed the rules. Simple but exciting (I love the action cards). I think it's time to start painting the imperial fleet...

I have finished a squad of two Dralnak class war balloons. They are a models that I´ve always liked, although I had a hard time painting them due to such fine detail and because I had the bad idea to glue the two halves before painting (although had printed them unassembled!).

I´ll stop now with the fleet, although I still have two cruisers and three frigates to add, because I have waaaay more to paint ... For now I leave you a picture comparing the sizes, but in the next post I'll show a family pic and I'll try the rules in a small report. Stay tuned!